A Haunting
by Gilles ze Dragon
Summary: Rayn temporarily moves into an apartment in Haven during the combat racing tournament, but it's not all what it's cracked up to be. Sequel to Dead Memories. Set during Jak X. Rated T for language and some violence/crazy stuff. R&R's are loved!
1. Prologue

**Surprise! Sequel time! =D At the moment, it's only the prologue, but heck, it's something! XD**

**Disclaimer: the landlord and apartment layout are mine, the gum's too general of a brand to put a disclaimer on, the rest belongs to Naughty Dog.**

**R&R's & other things = love! =3**

**Enjoy!

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**

The landlord took out her key, turned the lock, and opened the gray-blue door to the apartment with a slight shove. She had received quite a few complaints from some of the residents who lived next to the currently vacant apartment about some kind of strange activity coming from inside; it was really saying something, considering the ones who were complaining were elderly people well into their late seventies and early eighties at the least. She had tried to explain to them that there was nobody living inside the apartment at the time, so there was nothing inside the apartment to create a fuss, but nobody believed her. So, here she was today, hoping to be able to find absolutely nothing inside the apartment that could disturb the neighbors on a regular basis and put an end to the complaints. Besides, there was a young lady from Kras City who was going to move into it in a few days, and she wanted to make sure the apartment was more than ready for her to move in.

She popped a piece of peppermint-flavored chewing gum into her mouth as she entered the main area of the apartment through the small kitchen and glanced around. There was nothing inside the apartment aside from the usual furnishings that had been left when the apartment's previous residents, two young men who were in their very early twenties, left in a hurry carrying a few of their belongings. As she moved through the main area of the apartment and its attached porch, she saw nothing that she considered to be out of the ordinary. Little did she know at the time that something out of the ordinary had already seen her.

After making sure that the sliding glass door that separated the porch from the rest of the apartment was locked, she made sure there was nothing around that could possibly come in and disturb her. She entered the small hallway that led to the two bedrooms, past the apartment's one small bathroom and the avocado-green dresser full of old phone books and who-knows-what-else across from it, and checked the two closets on either side of her. The closet to her right housed shelves full of towels of varying colors. The closet across from it held nothing but dust, a large and moveable floor fan with its cord wrapped around it, some black pipes, and a small light bulb hanging off of a cord attached to the ceiling. She turned on the light and sent the shadows creeping back into the corners from which they came, making sure there was nothing more hiding in the small space.

"Nothing more than dust, wood, pipes, and a fan. Everything around here looks good and normal so far," she thought to herself as she turned off the light and walked out of the closet, closing the door behind her.

She made her way into the first of the two bedrooms, its door located directly next to the closet that she had just searched. The two twin-sized beds directly to her right and the small nightstand between them lay undisturbed, as did the two dressers and large chest directly across from them. Hidden behind the open bedroom door was a closet door that featured a long mirror on the front side of it that had remained closed. Above the two beds hung a ceiling fan with a small pattern on the end of the blades closest to her that she thought looked like a distorted face or plant with a spear going through the middle of it. Just in case, she checked in, around, and under the beds, dressers, closet, and nightstand and found nothing more than dust, more towels, and clothing.

Satisfied with what she had found in the first bedroom, she walked into the adjacent bedroom and surveyed the furniture. There was a small, white, plastic trash bin in front of her with a plastic bag inside that kept the door open. Directly in front of her was a wide, white dresser that went up to her hip with a tall mirror and two vases with fake cloth flowers on top of it. Across the dresser was a small chair with a floral pattern that looked as if it were made and colored by hippies. A few inches to the right of the ugly chair was a blue and white nightstand with a small lamp on top of it and a double-sized bed directly next to it. A few feet across from the foot of a bed was a black closet door with a white desk to the right of it and a coat hanger covered in various hats to its left. A ceiling fan identical to the one found in the previous bedroom hung still and silent, appearing as if it were waiting for somebody to turn it on. She searched through the dresser, looked through the one drawer in the nightstand, searched the three small drawers in the desk, and glanced under the bed, but found nothing but more clothes and dust.

Just as she was about to begin searching the closet, she heard the loud thud of the front door closing. She knew that it could not possibly be a draft since no small gust of air could close a door that heavy. She quickly walked out into the main area of the apartment to find an explanation for the noise, hoping that it did not mean someone was in the apartment with her. She checked the sliding glass door that led out to the porch and found that it was still locked. Afterwards she walked past the wooden table with the plastic, red tablecloth and towards the kitchen to check on the front door, looking around her for anything that seemed different from a few minutes earlier.

She peered into the kitchen and saw that nothing had moved other than the front door. She walked over to the front door and attempted to open it, suddenly remembering that she had accidentally left her keys in the lock on the other side of the doorknob again. The door would not budge, no matter what she did to it. The lock was set in the "unlocked" position, and she was sure that nothing natural could have moved the small, rusty hook on the other side of the door into the small hole and locked that portion of the door. She had pulled as hard as she could on the door, but the door refused to give in.

"It's an old door; it's probably bound to do this at some point. I'm sure it'll decide to open for me when I go to leave later," she thought as she left the door alone to continue her search in the closet of the second bedroom.

While she was making her way back towards the bedrooms, the air surrounding her suddenly became very cold. She shivered slightly, wondering if this type of activity was what the neighboring residents were complaining about. She entered the bedroom that she had not finished searching earlier and quickly noticed that the ceiling fan was spinning at full speed.

"That would probably explain the sudden chill!" she thought as she walked over and pulled the cord that she knew would slow it down and, after a few pulls, turn it off. But, like the door, it did not respond to her actions.

As quickly and suddenly as the front door's decision to close seemingly on its own, the lamp started turning itself on and off. It flickered quickly three times, then blinked slowly three times, then flickered quickly three more times before stopping for a few seconds. It repeated this over and over, showing no sign of stopping anytime soon.

"What in Mar's name is going on here?" she asked aloud, glancing around her.

The bedroom door swiftly slammed shut behind her, making her jump slightly. Thick, black and dark purple smoke began to pour out from the crack at the bottom of the closet door, disappearing into swirling wisps and spirals once they reached a certain height. A loud, evil, almost demonic cackle filled all four corners of the room, nearly deafening the poor woman. Afraid for her life, the young landlord backed up against the door, and attempted to grab at the doorknob and escape. When the doorknob refused to move and the cackling grew louder, she continued trying to back up, despite having a door in her way.

The closet door flung open, and suddenly there was nothing but complete darkness and total silence in the room. Two seconds later, light returned to the room, leaving everything the way things were before the landlord walked into the room. The bedroom door was open once again, and the closet door looked as if it had never been touched. The fan had completely stopped spinning, and the lamp no longer blinked. The air throughout the apartment was absolutely still.

Most importantly, the landlord had disappeared without a trace. There were no signs that she had even entered the apartment aside from her large set of keys, still hanging from the lock in the handle of the now open front door.


	2. Moving In

**Huzzah for an update! ^-^ Now the real story begins! I recommend that you read the first story, at least most of the stuff in/after chapter 7, but that's completely optional and up to you. X)**

**Disclaimer: The apartment layout, the storyline, the guy who shows Rayn the room, and the (almost) random voice behind Rayn are mine; the game show and microwave are too general of a type of show (like Wheel of Fortune or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or something, neither of those shows belong to me, though... XD)/brand of microwave to put a disclaimer on; and the rest belongs to Naughty Dog.**

**R&R's and other things are love! =D**

**Enjoy!

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**

Rayn stood at the counter of the small apartment complex, her bags sitting at her feet as she waited for the landlord or someone else who worked there to come and serve her. She had entered herself in a combat racing tournament that was going to be held here in Haven City; she felt fortunate that she was able to find an apartment this close to the racetracks in such short time with a price as low as it was.

When she had talked to the landlord last week, she had been told that its previous owners left in a hurry without much of an explanation why, and nobody had decided to look into renting it because of a few rumors floating around. Figuring that the rumors were false like most of the other rumors she had heard, she took the apartment anyway. Besides, she'd only be there for a few weeks at the most while she raced in the tournament to help her team win the antidote for the poison from her father's wine.

A young man with short, brown hair and average city clothes suddenly appeared from a back room and up to the counter to greet her. He kept an expression on his face that gave Rayn the impression that he was constantly nervous and very jittery; the way he kept fiddling with his hands further proved her theory.

"Ah, you must be the lady from Kras who wanted the vacant apartment. Rayn, was it?" the man asked, his voice shaking somewhat with a sense of fear.

"Yes, the landlord said she'd be here today to help me move in and take care of the money," Rayn replied, glancing once or twice to the back room the young man had come out of with hopes of finding the woman she had spoken to last week.

The man paused and stared at her for a few seconds, looking as if he had no idea what she had just said.

"Oh, the landlord! She's... on vacation! She didn't tell me exactly when she'd return, but she left me to take care of the apartments for her in her absence," the man said, becoming jitterier than ever. He paused for a moment before continuing, "Shall I escort you to the apartment?"

"Of course! That would be wonderful!" Rayn said, picking up her bags.

---

It had taken her all afternoon after Rayn had been given a short tour of the apartment to get her belongings unpacked. She was somewhat surprised at how much was already in the apartment. The cupboards and refrigerator were already full of food that was still good, even the gallon of milk in the back of the fridge. There were still some clothes left in all three of the dressers in the two bedrooms, and the closet next to the bathroom was filled with towels. Shampoo and conditioner bottles, as well as other toiletries, were piled on the two glass shelves next to the shower.

She felt that was lucky that there was enough room left for her clothes in the white dresser in the bedroom she had decided to sleep in. All else fails, she would have shoved some of her clothes in the closet across from the single double-sized bed in the room. However, she had a bad feeling about the closet and decided to try and shove what she could in the dresser.

She sat on the chair in what she considered to be the family room, made mostly of white leather and had a red cloth seat and back. She quickly flipped through the channels on the television screen tentatively, figuring out which stations belonged to which channel number for future reference.

The left the volume on the television low so she could hear her own thoughts amidst the small noises coming through the thin walls from the adjacent apartments. Unfortunately for her, most of her surrounding neighbors were elderly people who were not able to hear well, so she could hear everything that was coming out of their televisions. From what she could vaguely hear through the thin walls, the neighbors on her left side were watching a game show on a channel she passed a few seconds ago; the other neighbors were either had their television sets too far away from the walls or had their volume down low enough to keep her from hearing them.

At some point during the evening, her mind had become so focused on channel-flipping that she almost did not notice the sudden silence that had enveloped the apartment. She changed to the station she remembered seeing the game show on, and noticed that it had not ended yet. She looked at the clock on the microwave and noticed that it was ten minutes to eight. She glanced down at her watch, which also read ten minutes to eight at the moment. From what she knew of old people's general sleeping habits, there was no way her neighbors had turned in for the night so early, especially when they were in the middle of watching one of their favorite television programs.

She turned her attention back to her own television and found that it had been turned off. She clearly remembered not having her fingers anywhere near the power button on the remote since she had turned the television on. She pressed the power button and aimed the remote at the television, but the device refused to turn on.

"There must be something wrong with the power," she thought, then realized that the lamp next to her was still turned on and that the time of the microwave still glowed lime green. She glanced back over at it, and saw that the time had not changed since she had looked at it the first time. She stared at it for a few minutes as she glanced at her watch to figure out what time it was to see if it would do anything, but the time on the microwave never changed while her watch behaved normally.

A small rumble that sounded like thunder moved through the apartment, which was odd since there were no thunderclouds within a hundred miles of the city at the time. Just in case, though, Rayn got up and walked through the sliding glass door next to the couch onto the porch. She looked up into the dark sky and into the water of the canals below to search for any signs of rain, but found nothing of the sort. It was a perfectly clear evening; the stars in the sky glowing like fireflies in the spring and summer.

With a shrug, Rayn turned and walked back through the sliding glass door and into the apartment. Just as she began to close the door, she heard a sound like somebody shouting from the roof. Then, she saw a large, black figure drop towards the canals below from somewhere above the apartment and was followed by the sounds of a loud crack and a splash.

"Oh my god!" Rayn cried, sprinting back out to the railing on the porch and looking down into the canals below, hoping to find out what had just dropped from the roof.

However, she saw that nothing had changed from a few moments previously. The streets were completely devoid of people, the street lamps hummed softly as they illuminated the paths below them, and the waters showed no signs of any recent movement.

"How odd," she mumbled to herself, blinking hard a few times and attempting to make sense of what was going on.

"How odd indeed," said a masculine voice behind her.

Rayn quickly jumped and gasped at the sound of the voice, and turned to see who had spoken. She only found her apartment and the things inside it, completely untouched. The only person she saw anywhere inside of it was herself.

"I'm hearing things. I'm just tired, and I'm pretty sure that's what's causing me to do this. It's been a long day for me, is all," Rayn mumbled as she walked back into the apartment and turn herself in for the evening.


	3. A Little Help from Jak

**Finally, a frigging update. x_x Darn internet in my vacation place... *airkicks crappy lack of open wireless networks* Anyway... Yup, another chapter. More updates on what the heck's going on in the apartment...and stuff. =) And for all of you crazy fangirls of Jak and/or Dax, here's your chapter-ly dose of your favorite characters! ^-^  
**

**Disclaimer: The crazy, singing drunks, the idea for the oldies station, and the ideas for the rest of this story are mine; the rest belongs to Naughty Dog.**

**R&R's are love!  
Enjoy! ^-^

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**

One morning at the Naughty Ottsel, the place was busy as it normally was at the moment with the combat racers in town taking it over and buying all the drinks they could bear before competing in the day's race. The bar's radio blasted out music from a local classic rock station and mingled in the air with the strong odor of cigarette smoke compliments of Razer. The music entertained some while annoying others, for some of the local drunkards belted out the lyrics to all of the songs they knew, much to the annoyance of some of those who were sitting the closest to them.

"So, how's your new apartment?" Jak asked as Rayn took the seat across from him with her fourth cup of coffee for the morning, stirring a small packet of sugar into it. "You haven't told us anything about it since you got here a few days ago."

"It's... pleasant for the most part," Rayn replied. She was tempted to say that she was somewhat afraid to be in it. There were strange noises that came from her bedroom closet at night that kept her up for the most part. Not to mention the fact that the microwave clock was still stuck at ten minutes to eight. The television still refused to turn on despite the power cord being taken out of its wall socket and put back in multiple times a day and the battery to the remote control being replaced at least ten to fifteen times.

"What's so bad about it? The fear of getting shot by a rogue robot by just walking out onto your back porch? Crappy neighbors? Random, confused birds accidentally flying into your windows?" Daxter asked, lying down on his back on the top of the table with the tip of his tail hanging over the edge. "And might I remind you that you're on your fourth cup of coffee this morning. Have you been getting enough sleep lately? I know this racing stuff's stressful, but even _I_ can get enough beauty sleep at night. Then again, mine might be because I know Jak can and will save my ass out there any day."

"It's the neighbors, mostly. I'm pretty sure they're just a bunch of old people who can't hear well, which explains why they keep their television sets on at full blast for most of the day," Rayn said, taking a sip of her coffee as a taste test to see if it needed anything else.

"Let me guess, then they fall asleep without turning the TV off all night?" Jak asked, taking a quick sip out of his coffee mug. "Typical old people behavior."

"Well, I can't exactly say," Rayn said, stirring some cream into her coffee mug.

"They either do or they don't, so pick an answer, lady!" Daxter stated, sitting up suddenly and staring Rayn square in the face. "I figure they don't, considering the dark bags under your eyes."

Rayn took a long sip of coffee, and then put her mug down on the table. She remained silent for a few moments, trying to think up of the best way to bring up the fact that she thought there was something seriously wrong with her apartment.

"Where do you think people go after they've died?" she suddenly asked.

"Where did this come from all of a sudden?" Jak asked.

"Pure curiosity," Rayn said with a shrug, lying through her teeth again like she occasionally did. "Do you think some of them stay where they died forever, looking for peace and never finding it? Or maybe they're just sticking around to torment the living."

"It's possible that they can stay where they've died. I can't say for sure, it's more of a question for Onin or Pecker; they know more about spirits and such a lot better than anybody I know," Jak said. "Now, seriously, why'd you decide to bring this up?"

"God, this sorta crap is too weird for me. I'm gonna go find Tess," Daxter said, scratching his head and hopping off of the table to look for his girlfriend.

"You do that," Rayn said, giving Daxter a few seconds to get out of earshot range so she could continue her conversation without having a loud-mouthed creature next to her to somehow let the whole bar know about her problems. "I think I have some reason to believe that my apartment is haunted."

"You're kidding," Jak said, raising an eyebrow.

Rayn shook her head. "I'm afraid not. I honestly don't think that I could joke about such a thing. Ah, well. The supposed ghost in my apartment is the reason why I've had so much cups of coffee. The thing kept me up for most of the night since the day I got here, making noises from behind the door of my bedroom closet. It's not just the rattling chains and moaning from a stereotypical ghost that kept me up; I keep hearing scratches, muffled screams, the works. To possibly make things worse, it's kept my television from turning on and the clock on my microwave to be stuck at ten minutes to eight."

"Sounds like a serious problem. Have you tried everything possible with the television and microwave?"

"From what I can remember, I've replaced the remote battery at least ten times, pushed the power button on the television more times than I can count, and plugged and unplugged both devices quite a few times. In fact, even after I unplug the microwave, the damned thing still gives me the time it always gives me. Nothing I've tried has worked so far, and I'm pretty sure the neighbors still get normal power. Not that I've been able to tell, mind you. I haven't gotten any noise out of those apartments since the night I moved into mine."

"Hmm. I'll put a word in with Pecker; hopefully, either he or Onin or both will be available sometime in the near future to come over and take a look at the apartment. I'll have them call you sometime later after the race."

"Thank you, Jak. I _really_ appreciate it." Rayn put her hand on Jak's shoulder with a small smile and a vague sense of compassion as she pulled out a pen from her purse and grabbed a nearby napkin to write her current apartment's phone number on for him.


	4. The Call

**Finally, another update. x_x Sorry this one took so long to do, I've been having computer problems lately. Long story short, it's all because the original hard drive on my laptop crapped out on me, but fortunately for me, everything on it was saved, including my progress on this fic. ^-^ *kicks original hard drive out of window, then goes out into yard and rescues it since I still have all my stuff on there***

**Anyway, back to the story crap...**

**Disclaimer: The apartment, the stuff in it, and the plot/storyline are mine; the rest belongs to Naughty Dog.**

**R&R's and other things are love! ^-^**

**Enjoy!

* * *

**

Rayn stepped out of the shower and into some decent clothing, her hopes still high that Pecker and Onin would call sometime tonight like Jak promised they would. She and her team had just guaranteed themselves a spot in the next round of racing, but she was currently more concerned with her own well-being in this apartment than racing victories.

She walked back into the family room, turned on the lamp next to the white and red chair, and tried to turn the television on again, just to make sure it was still having problems. To her surprise, the device turned on after one press of the power button on the remote. The screen, however, did not show the game show channel she had remembered leaving it on the night before; it, instead, appeared to be on one of the all-static channels. The black and white static fuzz danced all across the screen in every which way, and a low hiss escaped from the television's speakers.

"Better than nothing," she muttered, "but I'll go check and see if I accidentally unplugged the cable instead of the power this morning and forgot to put it back."

She walked over to the television and turned the stand it was sitting on so she could take a look at the back of the device. From what she could see of the cables in the back of the television, everything was in its proper place and installed correctly. She scratched her head and moved the television stand back to its original position.

The television was still on the static channel, which surprised her slightly. She thought that by now it would have gone back to the way it was for the past few days. Just as she thought this, the screen turned blank again.

"Figures, I've probably jinxed myself for the rest of the time I spend in this place with that thought," she muttered as she sighed and sat on the couch behind her.

The lamp next to the chair suddenly flickered a few times before turning off completely.

"Oh, great! Not you, too!" she cried. "Damn apartment. The electronics in here are all screwy thanks to whatever the hell's in here!"

It was then that she noticed that the television set was still on; still on the black screen, but still glowing as if it were on a station that was not broadcasting anything, including static. The screen seemed to be giving off an ominous glow in the otherwise very dark apartment.

She looked around at the darkness, then down at her watch. Was it really that late? From what she could tell from the small amount of light given off by the television, her watch told her it was quarter to five in the afternoon. Yet, there was absolutely no light anywhere else in the apartment, other than the glowing television screen and the microwave clock that still showed its typical time.

The telephone on top of the avocado-green dresser suddenly rang, its loud ring echoing against the walls of the apartment. The sudden noise made Rayn jump slightly, but then quickly filled her with relief as she went to answer it.

"Hello?" she asked as she put the receiver against her ear and twirled the cord it was attached around the index finger of her free hand.

"The television works now, doesn't it?" a somewhat familiar voice with a Spanish accent asked on the other end of the line.

"Yes, if by 'working', you mean that it's finally decided to turn on and is currently giving me a glowing, black screen," Rayn said, looking at the television screen with a raised eyebrow. "Might I ask who's calling?"

"Pecker, the one Jak said could help you. I am the interpreter for Onin the sooth-sayer. He's told me that you might have a problem with spirits and your name is Rayn, am I correct so far?" he asked. Rayn suddenly remembered that the voice belonged to the small, parrot-monkey creature that had just recently become the second announcer on G.T. Blitz's television show.

"_Might_ be having a problem is putting it _very_ mildly at the moment, but yes, you're absolutely correct."

"According to Onin, you also currently have a lamp that has just turned off without explanation. Is this also correct?"

"Yes. How do you... does she..."

"Like I said, she's a sooth-sayer. She just knows this kind of crap. She also says that the lamp will turn back on in exactly five seconds starting...now."

Rayn said nothing for a few seconds and stared at the lamp. Right on cue, the lamp turned back on as quickly and suddenly as it had turned off.

"This... is beginning to scare me more than the activity in the apartment," Rayn said softly.

"That's kind of what everybody says," Pecker stated. "Now, based off of what Onin and I can tell through the telephone at the moment, all we can say to you right now is that your apartment is indeed haunted. So, no, you're not going crazy. The one dominant spirit in there, which is a young male in his late teens from what I can sense, is particularly evil, yet he's somewhat good as well. Would you mind telling the two men in there with you right now to quiet down? I can hear their bickering through the phone!"

"But I'm the only one living in this apartment. There isn't anybody else here, and most certainly not two men."

"Oh, my! I'm beginning to fear that the current situation with the spiritual activity in your apartment is worse than I thought! Onin and I are coming over _now_ as quickly as possible! We'll also be bringing whatever backup we can find on our way here."

"What's going on?! Am I going to have to leave this apartment?" Rayn asked. She could vaguely hear a door open somewhere behind Pecker, followed by a faint male voice.

"As far as we can tell, not at the moment. Until we get there, stay as far away from the closet in your bedroom and the stereo next to the television as possible!" Pecker instructed, sounding extremely serious.

"You mean to tell me that the thing next to the television that looks like a who-knows-when chest from a few centuries ago is a _stereo_!?"

"Yes, but we'll discuss that later if we ever get the chance. Don't touch it, don't go near it, don't talk about it, don't even _think_ about it until we get there, and everything shall be fine. Goodbye for now!"

With that, Rayn heard a small click on the other end of the line. Tensing up slightly, she put the receiver back down where it belonged. This was going to be a long night.


	5. Beginning the Investigation

**Yup, another update. I can't think of anything else to add to this section, so I'll get right to the usual stuff.**

**Disclaimer: The storyline, the apartment, Soray, Toright, and all the investigative stuff they bring are mine; the rest belongs to Naughty Dog.**

**R&R's and other things are loved! =)**

**Enjoy! ^-^

* * *

**

Rayn sat down in her usual chair across from the glowing television, staring at the large, chest-sized stereo that looked like it came from a few centuries ago. She could hardly believe her ears when Pecker had told her what it was. He had also told her not to even think about the device, but that was hard for her to do at the time.

She began to wonder why that stereo was so important to the spirits in the apartment, why at least one of them had decided to attach itself to the ancient-looking object. If the thing was so important to it, why didn't it decide to somehow suck it into the bedroom closet it had decided to take shelter in so it could have some better use for it?

She closed her eyes and attempted to take her mind off of the matters at hand for a few minutes. She rubbed her eyes with the thumb and index finger on her left hand, and could not help notice the faint scent of some kind of mint in the air. It was the kind of minty smell that was usually associated with mass quantities of a particular flavor of chewing gum, or having somebody directly next to you who is chewing some at the time. She vaguely remembered hearing chewing noises in the background while she was on the phone with the landlord last week when she called about renting the apartment.

"_Could it be...?"_ she thought for a moment. _"__No, that's impossible. The man downstairs said the landlord was on vacation until the Precursors know when. But he was awfully jittery when he said that, which probably means he was lying. Does that mean...?"_

A loud knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. She quickly got up to answer the door, turning on the light above the stove in the kitchen. She was too concentrated on the door to notice the thick darkness all around the apartment creeping back into the cracks and corners from which it came.

She opened the door to find an old woman dressed in street clothes and no shoes with a large, wide bowl on her head, staring at her with her pupil-less eyes. Small, round earrings covered both of her ears, and thick bracelets clacked together when she moved her arms. She held a plastic grocery bag in her hands filled with some sort of plant. In the bowl on her head sat Pecker, the half-parrot half-monkey creature that served as her interpreter.

Behind her were two men who had to be in their early twenties at the least, carrying all kinds of electronic equipment in their hands and backpacks. The one on the left had bleach-blond hair and was slightly taller and larger than his brown-haired partner beside him.

"Ah, you must be Onin and Pecker. Nice to see you," Rayn said. "And these other two men with you are...?"

"I'm Soray, he's Toright. We work the day shift at a plumbing company a few blocks away, but we're also currently Haven City's top paranormal investigative team," the blond man who called himself Soray introduced.

"We fix pipes by day, and hunt ghosts by night, dude," Toright added.

"They used to live here," Pecker added.

"I see. Come in, come in; I'll make some room on the, er... dining room table, if you can call it that, so you all can put your stuff down," Rayn said, opening the door fully and walking through the kitchen towards the table.

The small team followed, Onin stepping through the family room and standing at the entrance to the hallway that led towards the bedrooms while Soray and Toright began setting up their equipment on the table. Pecker flew onto the back of the couch, examining the apartment thoroughly with whatever senses Rayn figured he used at times like this.

"Where should we put the cameras, bird-monkey-dude?" Toright asked, holding a few expensive-looking cameras in his hands.

"I think maybe one on top of those phone books on that dresser in the hall facing towards the bedrooms, and another one next to it facing into this room. Perhaps we can also put one facing where I am on that table over there on that little table between those two chairs next to the stereo so we can see if we get anything off of the television or microwave," Pecker said, pointing at the two locations with a feathered finger. "There should also be at least one camera out on the porch and, if we have one left, in the bedroom at the end of the hall on the left hand side, in case there's a spirit or two lurking around in those places as well."

"You think we should also put one in my bedroom facing the closet?" Rayn suggested.

"I ain't going in there!" Toright exclaimed, raising his hands in the air as if he had just been caught doing something wrong.

"Neither am I, and I highly doubt _you_ want to go back in there after what we think you've probably heard coming from the closet at night," Soray added, pointing at Rayn as he set up his laptop computer and Toright put up the remaining cameras.

Rayn shook her head violently. "I'm afraid to even go down that hallway anymore, even if it's just to use the bathroom. I've started to seriously consider sleeping out here on the couch."

"I don't blame you. Those noises are so loud that Toright and I could hear them, and we were sleeping in the bedroom next to it with the door closed and blankets covering any open cracks we could find," Soray said.

Onin suddenly thrust one of her hands out behind her.

"Onin says she will take some of the cameras down there and face it towards the closet and whatever other spiritual hot-spots she can possibly fit onto the screen, as well as put one into the bedroom that isn't currently being used," Pecker interpreted as Onin waved her hands through the air. "She also says not to be surprised if the camera in Rayn's bedroom disappears like so many other things and people before it. Spirits can be quite possessive like that on occasion."

Rayn gulped loudly as Toright gave Onin one of the cameras. "Did you say... people?"

"Unfortunately, I did," Pecker answered solemnly. "Most, if not all, of the victims of this one dominant spirit I'm sensing have been people who have gone searching for it in particular, whether the victims realized it was actually him they were looking for or not."

"Was one of the victims the landlord of this apartment complex?" Rayn asked. "I smelled something that I think was some kind of minty chewing gum, and I'm pretty sure the landlord was a gum chewer, or is one if she's still alive to some degree."

Pecker closed his eyes for a moment, becoming in-tune with the paranormal beings in the apartment. "She's in here as another unknowing victim. She's not quite dead, yet not quite alive, either. She is _definitely_ around in this apartment, that's for sure, only she's roaming through the small world between ours and the one reserved for spirits of all sorts: those who have passed on, those who are stuck here for as long as time allows, the works. Think of it as a purgatory of sorts. She's trapped there, and she doesn't quite know how to escape. That sort of thing is what Onin and I are here for. The two of us will at least try to send as many spirits and people as possible to their rightful places."

"Alright, all of the cameras we're using are on line and ready to go," Soray said, pressing a few final buttons and keys on the computer. "Let's go into lights-out mode."


	6. Continuing the Investigation

**Another update. Woo. -fingertwirl- I'm assuming people are continuing to read and enjoy this, so here's another chapter for you all. ^-^ I'm also getting into a semi-writer's-block with this story, so I might not update it for a while. Bleh.**

**Disclaimer: Soray, Toright, and the apartment (including its layout, the stuff inside it, etc.) are mine; the ghost hunting equipment Soray and Toright have and the ghost hunting techniques being used are too general/don't have an original creator that I know of to put a disclaimer on; the rest belongs to Naughty Dog.**

**R&R's and other things (faves, etc.) are loved majorly!**

**Enjoy! =)

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**

To Rayn, it felt like it had been a long night so far. The inside of the apartment was eerily darker than it normally was at this time of night, even if there was an extremely bad thunderstorm tearing the city apart to some extent outside.

Toright and Soray moved through the apartment occasionally, seeing where they were with the help of their night-vision and heat-sensing cameras. On occasion, they attempted to talk to the spirits and catch their responses and voices on a tape recorder. Soray told her they were recording something called electronic voice... something-or-other. She was unable to recall the full name of it at the moment.

Onin sat between the red and white chair and the coffee table that sat a few inches in front of the television set with Pecker sitting in the bowl on her head, meditating and hopefully dealing with the spirits in the apartment. The slight scent of burning sage wafted through the apartment from the small bowl sitting in Onin's lap, carefully being balanced by her legs so nothing would spill out of it. Pecker had remained so silent that she had forgotten that he and Onin were still there; their colorful outline on the cameras was her only way of confirming their physical presence.

In the meantime, Rayn sat in one of the chairs at the table that Toright and Soray had set their equipment on, keeping out of the paranormal investigators' way and trying not to mess with any of the equipment. Her lack of sleep for the night was beginning to get to her. She tried to keep herself from dozing off by staring at Soray's computer screen, observing the activity, or rather the lack of it that was going on.

There was a program running that was displaying five boxes with a small variety of colors in them, each displaying what its respective camera was catching. The boxes in the top row were connected to the cameras on the dresser in the small hallway. The box on the left in the middle row went with the camera on the porch; the box next to it gave her a better view of the television and microwave, with a bit of Rayn's shoulder showing on the left side of the small box. The one box in the last row was connected to the camera in her bedroom, which apparently had been placed on the funky-looking chair in the corner that sat next to the white dresser.

All five boxes were covered in color; mainly faint greens melding into various shades of blue. There was a rainbow bar sitting vertically on the right side of all the boxes with a number on each end, with white being at the very top of the box; dark purple and black took up the bottom. From what she could tell, the strips with numbers told her what color went with which approximately which temperature in Fahrenheit. The highest numbers shown on the cameras that had people in the room were somewhere in the high nineties; otherwise, they hovered between eighty and eighty-five degrees. The lowest temperatures were floating anywhere between sixty and sixty-four degrees.

Soray and Toright came into the family room and sat on the chairs next to the stereo, with Toright sitting in the chair closest to the large, old device. They were about to begin to ask the spirits various questions, once again attempting to obtain a response from the seemingly quiet ghosts.

It had not occurred to Rayn until now that she had heard nothing out of the ordinary so far during the course of the night. It was most likely because she was not in her bedroom, trying to sleep while ignoring the sounds coming from the closet. She glanced at where she could tell the closet was in the bedroom square. It glowed lime green like the time on the microwave with a slight hint of yellow, the color it had been for as long as she could remember seeing it on this screen.

"How's the temperature looking everywhere, Rayn?" Soray asked. She wondered how he knew she was there for a moment before she remembered he still had a night-vision camera in his hands.

"Alright. When there's nobody in the room, the temperature's usually somewhere between about sixty and eighty-five degrees," Rayn responded, glancing down at the bars on the right side of the small boxes again.

"I'm assuming the highest temperature shoots up to somewhere in the high nineties when there's a living person in there, right?" Toright asked with a chuckle.

"It sure does," Rayn said, smiling slightly.

"Good, that means everything's in working order," Soray said. "Have you noticed any odd temperature changes in any of the rooms since you've been sitting there?"

"From what I can tell, nothing unusual. Then again, I fear that my current lack of sleep might have caused me to accidentally miss something," Rayn stated.

"That's fine; Toright and I are going to be looking at those tapes thoroughly whenever we can, looking for any unexplainable oddities in the bunch," Soray explained.

Rayn nodded softly and continued staring at the brightly colored boxes on the screens. In the meantime, Toright and Soray began to interview any spirits who were around to answer their questions as Onin and Pecker continued to sit silently.

"Are there any spirits in here who would like to communicate with us?" Soray asked. He and Toright left a few seconds of silence to ensure a chance of recording a voice from the other side.

Rayn began to feel a slight chill on her left side, but she dismissed it as a small gust of air from a vent. She glanced at the space next to her on the heat-seeking camera display and noticed that there was an almost human-shaped cold spot next to her that was in the low sixties in temperature. It was progressively getting colder, dropping down into the mid-fifties in about ten seconds. She raised an eyebrow at the observation, but she kept silent for fear of somehow negatively affecting the recording the two paranormal investigators were making.

"Tell us your name," Toright said. Once again, there were a few more seconds of silence; at least, on their side of the apartment.

"I am Seit," growled a soft voice from the cold spot next to Rayn. She immediately recognized it as the voice she had heard behind her the first night she stayed in the apartment and quickly turned her head towards the sound.

"What's up, Rayn? You hear something?" Soray asked.

"Yes, it sounded like somebody saying, 'I am Seit'," Rayn said, feeling the cold spot drift towards where Toright was sitting. "There's a cold spot right here next to me, at least there _was_ before it started moving towards Toright."

Rayn heard a loud gulp coming from Toright's direction. From what she could see in the heat-signature cameras that were focusing on the room, the cold spot drifted through the apartment, slowly heading towards Toright. It moved around the furniture in its intended path as if it knew where to go. Onin and Pecker simultaneously cringed and stiffened at the feeling of the spirit passing through them.

"Ugh, that spirit needs to _go_! _That_ is the _darkest_ thing both of us has felt in our years of doing these investigations, and that's _really_ saying something on Onin's part," Pecker exclaimed, shuddering.

"Is that...?" Rayn began. She quickly noticed the large amount of darkness beginning to fill the apartment, dimming the light of the computer screen in front of her slightly.

"Yes, that's the dominant spirit I was telling you about earlier. He tells me his name is Seit. He's a very dark spirit indeed... but he tells me that it's not entirely his fault he's like this," Pecker said. "He says his brother did most of this to him, churned Dark Eco into his blood when he was alive, possibly in the same way Baron Praxis did when he put Dark Eco into Jak's body. Little did either of them realize at the time that he would turn out like this."

"Did he... die from the Eco?" Rayn asked, her voice quivering. She had little to no idea up until that point that Jak had Eco pumped into his body.

"Far from it, dude," Toright said, sounding as if he was about to emotionally break down at any given moment. Rayn could hear his soft sobs echo off of the walls. "It wasn't the crap in his body that killed him, it was the crap in his head; he couldn't get it out, no matter what he or I or anyone else who was close to him tried. We could've helped him, man. If he hadn't gone and... Oh god! Now he's passed on his memory curse to me! Don't let me leave in here alone, please! I'm _not_ going and jumping off of the roof like he did!"

The hallucination she had the first night she was here suddenly made sense. The sudden shout, the black figure falling from above the apartment, the crack and splash that sounded soon after; it was all a spiritual reenactment of Seit's suicide.

Pecker suddenly took a deep breath, probably feeling something else in the room other than Seit's ghost.

"Pecker, is there someone else in here other than Seit?" Soray asked.

"Yes. It seems his brother's here with him. It seems that Seit won't let his brother cross to the other side until some kind of dispute between them is resolved. That or Seit somehow goes on to the other side himself, whichever comes first. These two brothers arguing with each other are what I was most likely hearing during our phone conversation earlier, Rayn," Pecker said.

"That would make sense. Seit always had some sort of crap against his brother; granted, he never told me about it in detail, but he always said that he was pissed off at his brother for… something or other," Toright said, still sobbing slightly.

Suddenly, one of the fake plants on the stereo got up and flew across the room towards the hallway that led towards the bedroom. Pecker and Onin were fortunate that it had missed them by a few millimeters.

"Oh, Seit's angry at his brother again! I'm getting the sense that more things will be flying soon. I think we should just get out of at least this part of the apartment, for everybody's sake!" Pecker cried.

"And go where!?" Rayn exclaimed. "We can't just leave the apartment with all of your stuff here, so I see no point in leaving! The porch won't do much for us if something crashes through one of the windows if we're standing behind it, the bedrooms are haunted enough as they are, and I highly doubt all of us can fit in the kitchen at one time!"

"Well, we'll just have to try in the kitchen, then! Who cares if we all fit, as long as we aren't hit or anything, we're fine," Soray said, grabbing Toright's wrist and dragging him towards the small kitchen. "Don't worry about all of the equipment; all of that stuff can be replaced one way or another if anything gets damaged."

The telephone suddenly flew from the dresser and hit the window just behind the television, taking the cords that attached it to the wall with it and nearly breaking the window.

"Onin and I are right behind you!" Pecker said, sounding scared out of his wits.


	7. Dealing With the Demon

**Yay, another chapter. I've actually had this one sitting around for a few days, but was too lazy to put it up until now because I thought I'd have at least the next chapter done by now. I don't at the moment thanks to this dumb writer's block thing... x.x -kicks air- I promise I'll finish it and get it up eventually. ^-^  
**

**Anyway, yay, a new chapter for you people/writers/whatever-you'd-like-to-be-called to read and stuffs! X3 A little more crazy stuff, not much else.**

**Usual disclaimer: The apartment with its layout and stuff inside it, Seit, Toright, the landlord, and the storyline/plot are mine; the rest belongs to Naughty Dog (Yes, even Erol, even though he's a ghost... dammit... XP).**

**Reviews, faves, and other things are loved majorly! :)**

**Enjoy!

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**

Toright, Soray, Onin, and Pecker hid in the kitchen, while Rayn took refuge under the table with the electronic equipment on it. From what they could hear, things were still being thrown left and right through the family room of the small apartment, crashing into walls, windows, and whatever else was in their path.

As she glanced at what little she could see past the legs of the chairs, sofa, and table, Rayn began to hear what she thought were the two faint voices of men yelling at each other. From what she could vaguely hear of the argument, the first spirit was angry at the other for not letting him go on to the other side, wherever that was. The second was angry at the first one for something about leaving to join some kind of guard for years and losing touch with him. She recognized the voice of the second spirit as the one who had said "I am Seit" a few minutes prior.

The air around her quickly grew extremely cold as she felt some kind of energy shift towards where she had heard Seit's ghost's voice. She saw small bolts of purple lightning scatter across the family room floor.

"You see this?! Do you see what the fuck you did to me, you goddamn bastard? _You_ did this to me; _you_ shoved that crap into me and turned me into _this_!" Seit cried, his voice now sounding somewhat demonic. Rayn was hearing him loud and clear, as if he were still alive and standing a few feet away from her.

"You agreed to let me put the Eco into you! The way I see it, _you're_ the one to blame!" the other ghost said at the same volume.

"You never _told_ me that I would turn into this!" Seit exclaimed. Something crashed loudly onto the floor in front of the bathroom. "Now you're going to stay here with me for eternity and face your own creation, like I had to face you joining that damned guard and leaving us in the old slums, never to speak to us again! We were lucky we all got to see you the day you died the first time!"

Rayn could hardly put up with it anymore. She had let these spirits control her life in this apartment for long enough; she was going to at least attempt to end this here and now.

She crawled out from underneath the table through the somewhat small space between two chairs. She could hear somebody just outside the front door yelling something about keeping the noise down since everyone else in the apartment complex was trying to sleep, but she ignored it and hoped they would leave them alone. She thought she could also hear Pecker softly whispering not to leave the safety of the table, his feathers ruffling as he was waving his small arms around. She looked in the direction she thought she heard his voice from, and huffed as if to say, "Forget you, I'm doing things _my_ way!"

She stood up and stared past the couch and into the family room. She could clearly see Seit's ghost, only at the moment, he looked more like a demon from hell than a young man with his eyes now glowing a crimson-red color; almost-grape-purple skin; short, hook-like, black claws; and large, black, leathery wings. She could barely make out the form of the man he was arguing with, who was most likely his brother, standing directly next to the white and red chair. The only thing she could really see of him was his approximate size and shape.

Rayn suddenly had to duck as one of the fairly large phone books flew out from under the phone and towards the general direction that she was standing in. It missed her head completely and hit the tall, glass panel behind her enough to make it wobble, but not break.

"Alright, that is _it!_" Rayn shouted at the two arguing brothers, standing up straight and acting as if she was not almost decapitated by a flying phone book. "I don't care if you two are dead or still alive, both of you need to just leave this whole argument behind and move on! I don't care if you two move on to heaven or hell or wherever, just as long as it's not here!"

Seit slowly turned his head to look at her, his crimson eyes appearing to look straight into her soul. Rayn tried to physically appear unaffected by the glare, but found it hard to do so with eyes like his.

"This… doesn't… concern you!" Seit screamed; his voice had quickly switched to what she presumed was normal to a demon-like screech as he spoke.

Before she could even think about reacting, Rayn was quickly tackled to the ground by the demon that had stood a few feet from her only a few moments ago. She felt his claws digging into her shoulders, cutting through her shirt and close to making her bleed. There was a large amount of weight bearing down on her waist, thighs, and forearms that prevented her from possibly retaliating against her ghostly attacker.

Seit raised his left arm as if he were about to scratch her. Rayn fearfully stared into his eyes, as if begging him to have mercy.

Long, white bolts of lightning quickly and suddenly shot through Seit's apparation, causing him to appear as if he was having a seizure. A few seconds later, the lightning stopped and Seit fell to his side next to Rayn, slowly returning to his human form and disappearing from sight. The room appeared to become somewhat brighter as the evil shadows began to creep back into the corners to avoid the moonlight coming in from outside.

"What… what just happened?" Rayn stammered, still frozen in fear. She caught the faint smell of some kind of burning plant drifting up her nose.

"There is no time to explain, we must hurry and cleanse this place before that demon returns. The effects of the Light Eco spell that Onin just cast don't last long," Pecker said. "Lucky for you, there was a pack of matches in one of the kitchen drawers, or else you'd probably be extremely hurt, if not dead by now."

Still laying on her back on the floor in shock, Rayn felt Onin step over her, carrying a small container of burning plants in one hand and a small feather in the other. Rayn continued laying on her back and staring up at the ceiling for a few seconds before standing up and rubbing where Seit had dug into her shoulders. She could not feel any blood, which she supposed was a good sign.

"Are you alright?" Soray asked Rayn, putting his hand on her shoulder.

"I… I think I am. Just a bit flustered, is all," Rayn replied, shivering slightly.

"That's typical for an attack like yours. Feel lucky Onin intervened with that spell before he got a chance to harm you. I hear ghosts that can use Eco like Seit's can do more harm than just making your wounds bleed; they can somehow get Eco into your system, which, depending on the type of Eco and your body's ability to accept it, can have some crazy affects on you physically," Soray explained. "In your case with Seit, you could've easily died within minutes based on the severity of your injury."

Just then, there was a loud shriek coming from Rayn's bedroom, followed by the soft sounds of Pecker's voice.

"What's going on back there?" Soray asked, walking towards the back bedrooms with Rayn and Toright close behind.

"I think we've just found the landlord," Pecker said, pointing to the young woman cowering in one of the corners of the closet. "It appears she's alright after all; scared out of her wits, but alright."

"Please don't kill me," the landlord murmured as she pushed herself as back as the closet walls would allow.

"Don't worry; we're here to help you. Come on out, we'll get you to a safe place as soon as we can," Rayn said.

Rayn leaned forward into the closet slightly and offered a hand with a smile. The landlord sheepishly smiled back and took a hold of Rayn's hand, letting herself be pulled up and out of the stuffy closet.


End file.
